I A/B'd the same basses about 4 or 5 months ago, and I wound up buying an Ibanez SR406.

Schecter... So far, to this date, every sinlg e schecter bass I have played has been a total dissappointment ot me. Feels cheap, and the hardware makes the bass feel like a toy. The tone was also lacking in every way shape and form... except for the very trebly highs the EMG HZs produce... not my cup of tea. It really make me sad to get such a dissappointing experience from such a good looking bass. Especially, when the bass was setup EXACTLY how I love my basses setup too.

Ibanez... I absolutely love Ibanez, SR300, SR400, SR500 and even the high end Prestige SR1000. Every single one has had a killer tone coming from the stock Ibby DX pickups, and even bigger tone coming from the Bartolini MK's in the 500, and the custom Bart's in the Prestige just blew me away. The neck body, fit and finish of every single Ibanez has blown away anything in its price range IME.

Personally, I used to only want a bass that was neck-through and a 3 band preamp. Now I realize that neither matters one bit to me. I hardly ever touch my mids on my bass at all, hell, when i do touch my mids, its on my amp. Neck-through really only benefits in resonence and allows you to ring a note out longer. Well, I realized when in playing bass to I need to ring a note out, that long? My point is, all the 'cool' 3 band preamps and neck-through excess may not mater as much to you as you think it will.

I A/B'd the same basses about 4 or 5 months ago, and I wound up buying an Ibanez SR406.

Schecter... So far, to this date, every sinlge schecter bass I have played has been a total dissappointment ot me. Feels cheap, and the hardware makes the bass feel like a toy. The tone was also lacking in every way shape and form... except for the very trebly highs the EMG HZs produce... not my cup of tea. It really make me sad to get such a dissappointing experience from such a good looking bass. Especially, when the bass was setup EXACTLY how I love my basses setup too.

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I feel the exact opposite. Every schecter, guitar or bass, that I have tried has been awesome and I have tried many. Some of the best tones i have heard from bassists at shows I have been to have been using schecters. They definately are NOT cheap either. I love my schecters!

I think the Schecter basses would be much better sounding without the EMG-HZ and EMG Pre Amp. I remember someone on the Harmony Central forums putting Barts in his Elite 4 and it sounding tons better.

I always liked the looks of the Stiletto Elite's (besides the gold Harware, I'd much prefer black on that bass), but never really dug the sound. I think an electronics swap would do Schecters very well (as far as basses go, Schecter guitars seem to be flawless).

I think the Schecter basses would be much better sounding without the EMG-HZ and EMG Pre Amp. I remember someone on the Harmony Central forums putting Barts in his Elite 4 and it sounding tons better.

I always liked the looks of the Stiletto Elite's (besides the gold Harware, I'd much prefer black on that bass), but never really dug the sound. I think an electronics swap would do Schecters very well (as far as basses go, Schecter guitars seem to be flawless).

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I completely agree with you. I don't think the hardware is toyish, it just feels that way to me. I hope I didn't come off as bashing the Schecter basses, I really think they would be better basses if in fact they had a different electronics package. I don't know why I feel the way I do about the hardware, I just can't get over it.

With that said, I love the lower end Schecter guitars, (ie. Damien Series) but hate the higher end ones (ie. C1)... I don't get it!

1. They have Gold and Satin finished hardware on most basses
2. I like black/black chrome (sometimes called Smoke)harware and chrome hardware.

If I were to buy one, I'd gt it off of ebay used (they frequent ebay a lot oddly enough) and give it mods I think it deserves, to make it "my" bass. For such relatively inexpensive basses ,the fit-n-finish is impressive. To the level of maybe, American made, or Japanese with high quality control.